Word 2007, Equations, and Scientific Journal
Submissions

LONG BEACH, Calif. — June 22, 2007 —
The respected scientific journals, Science and Nature, have both
recently amended their guidelines for author submissions. In separate
statements, they disallow author submissions in Microsoft Office
2007's new .docx XML format, citing problems with their production workflows regarding
equations and symbols. The
Science statement is available here:http://www.sciencemag.org/about/authors/prep/docx.dtl
and Nature here:
http://www.nature.com/nature/authors/submissions/template/index.html.
Design Science, Inc., today clarified these issues with respect to its equation editing
products, MathType and Equation Editor.

Microsoft Word 2007 (part of Microsoft Office 2007) ships
with a new Equation Tools ribbon. This is in addition to Design Science's
Equation Editor (called Microsoft Equation 3.0 within Office), that has been included with
all versions of Office on both Windows and Macintosh platforms since 1991, and is a
simplified version of Design Science's MathType product. Publishers' workflows
are designed to handle documents containing equations created with Equation
Editor and MathType, but not equations created with Microsoft's new Equation
Tools ribbon.
Consequently, Science and Nature are not accepting documents containing these equations. Other publishers are likely to share the
same problem and restrict author submissions in the same way.

Authors are encouraged to continue using Equation Editor
(Microsoft Equation 3.0) or MathType
with earlier versions of Microsoft Word. Design Science has also
published a technical support note (http://www.dessci.com/mt/tsn124) that explains how to
make Equation Editor
easier to use in Microsoft Word 2007.

In related news, Design Science is preparing to release MathType
6.0 for Windows, a major new version addressing the needs of Word/PowerPoint
2007 users. Currently in beta, with release expected
within a month, this new version will allow authors to prepare submissions
compatible with scientific journals' workflows. For Word 2007 users, it will contain new equation numbering and browsing
features that work with Equation Editor, MathType, and
equations created with the new Equation Tools ribbon. It will also support input of equations using the TeX/LaTeX math
typesetting language from the keyboard, as well as the Windows clipboard.
Finally, it will allow equations to be copied from the thousands of Wikipedia
(www.wikipedia.org) articles that contain equations.

About Design Science

Founded in 1986 and headquartered in Long Beach,
California, Design Science develops software used by educators, scientists and
publishing professionals, including MathType, Equation Editor in Microsoft
Office, WebEQ, MathFlow, MathPlayer and TeXaide, to communicate on the web and
in print. For more information please visit
www.dessci.com